You don't need expensive material to make a nice video! Use what you have. A good smartphone is enough. No material to film with? Contact us and we'll see how we can help you!
Very important: always hold your smartphone horizontally when filming. So 'landscape'. To make your image more stable, you can put the smartphone on a tripod. If you don't have a tripod: no problem. You can easily make one yourself by putting a few books on top of each other. Or just try not to move.
Interview maximum two children at a time. Have the children look directly into the lens when they talk.
Be sure to place the children close enough to the smartphone so that you can properly record the sound. Find a quiet place and ask everyone around to shut up before you start filming.
The movies we make for Equator have three parts: a beginning, a middle and an end.
In the introduction you will introduce yourself. And you tell very briefly what you will talk about, for example: Hello! We are Suske and Wiske from the Esdoornschool from Knotwilgdam in Belgium! Today we are going to talk about ecological gardening.
Now we make a second movie. In it we will tell our story. This video should be about two minutes long. Together with your class, think carefully in advance about what you want to tell, but certainly don't memorize it and don't read a text aloud. What you say should be as spontaneous as possible. Children must tell their own story.
In this piece we will ask children on the other side of the equator to answer our video, for example: "How do you deal with gender equality in your country? We are curious! Be sure to send a video back!"
Film images that match the theme of your video. If you're talking about "garbage," film images of… garbage. Or even better: film an activity in which children from the class clean up garbage. For a film of two minutes you easily need 20 extra film frames. So be sure to make enough!
Choose the image you want to make. Hold your smartphone still. Try not to move your phone and do not zoom in or out, as this will cause you to lose image quality. Now hold your breath for ten seconds, so your image remains more stable.
You have very wide images, very close images and everything in between. To vary image sizes, do not zoom in or out, but move yourself. Film once from afar and once up close. That's handy in the assembly. You can also think together with children to make very creative images!
When you ask children a question, they often give short answers. For example, if you ask them: 'What is your favorite food?', a child will soon answer: 'Brussels sprouts'! That answer is way too short and we can't use it in our montage. It is therefore important that the children speak in full sentences. They do that much easier if you ask open questions: 'Tell me what your favorite food is and explain why?' 'I really like Brussels sprouts, because I'm going to harvest them myself with my family in a field nearby. And Brussels sprouts taste much better if you picked them yourself. I think everyone should have such a field nearby, because those Brussels sprouts are also much healthier. Our farmer does not spray toxic substances on it and that is better for nature and for me.'
See, that's an answer we can use! During the interview, make children feel comfortable, ask different questions on the same topic and remember that their answers are more important than your questions. We only use the answers in the editing. So do not interrupt the children and let them finish. They really need to be able to say what they think.
If you have filmed with your smartphone, you can easily send your images to us via Whatsapp. You can also send everything online via Wetransfer. And then we get to work!
When we have received the images, we will edit them into an Equator film. We have a lot of volunteers for that. We subtitle everything in 5 languages and then we put the video on our platform.
If you register on our platform you can watch all the videos there.
Isn't everything clear yet? Then email hello@myequator.net.